The Algorithm of Spring

72

The children's playground lay empty under the night sky, stars barely visible through the haze of yellow dust blowing in from China. The swings swayed gently in the autumn breeze. Maya sat on a bench at its edge, the conversation from that morning looping in her mind like a tightening knot: Nexus and Alan Richards.

Jun-ho arrived fifteen minutes after her, his approach between the 1980s apartment blocks silent and cautious. His breath clouded faintly in the cold — the only sign he'd hurried. They'd spent the day apart, checking for surveillance before finally agreeing to meet here.

"You weren't followed?" Maya asked as he settled beside her.

"No," he said. "You?"

"Took the long way. Changed trains twice." She passed him a hot coffee from the convenience store bag beside her — a small gesture of warmth in a day that had offered none. "Did you tell Min-seo?"

Jun-ho nodded, wrapping his hands around the cup. "She's digging into everything connected to Richards and any unofficial government task forces. She said there's no government entity called 'Nexus' on any official register. A ghost."

"It feels real enough," Maya said, her voice flat — the betrayal lodged deep and impossible to ignore. Her hero, the man whose art had been her North Star, was at the center of this. "The man in the park—he was terrified. He confirmed Nexus, he gave us Richards, and then he ran."

"He also gave us a target," Jun-ho said, his tone low and serious. "The Gungdo Championships. It's a high-profile archery tournament. Security will be intense."

"And he said there'll be a file waiting for us in the middle of it," Maya finished. "It could be a total set-up."

"Or it's a dead drop from someone who's too scared to talk," Jun-ho countered. "He risked everything to meet you, Maya. He wouldn't do that just to lead us into a simple trap. That file must contain the proof he couldn't give you himself—the real 'how' and 'why'."

Maya thought of her thesis: Chaos as Liberation in Modern Korean Painting. A bitter laugh escaped her. "I argued his work was about breaking free from constraints. Turns out he was just designing a more beautiful cage — and we walked right in."

"He's an artist who found a bigger canvas," Jun-ho said, his hand finding hers in the darkness. "That doesn't make you naive for loving the work. It just means he wasn't who you thought he was." He gave her hand a squeeze. "But right now, he's a secondary problem. Our only priority is that file. It's the key."

A family passed by the playground's edge, parents shepherding a sleepy child toward home. Maya watched them, a cold tension settling low in her stomach — a quiet snapshot of the future Nexus wanted to standardise.

"Two days until the championships," Jun-ho said, breaking the silence. "That gives us two days to figure out how to get into a sold-out, high-security event and retrieve a package from a specific seat without anyone noticing."

Maya looked up at the stars, barely visible through Seoul's ambient glow. The old man's warning echoed in her ears. Trust no one. Especially not your heroes.

"We'll need Min-seo's help," Maya said, resolve settling into place like armour. "Let's move." And the night seemed to shift around them.